Disclaimer: I’m not a Ken Evoy sycophant but I do like the way the man has set up the SBI business model.
Site Build It is a business building tool offered as a subscription for around US$30 a month or a bit less if you pay annually. For the money you get some pretty incredible tools – see below – and resources to help you build a website. The price includes a domain name registration, hosting, autoresponder, newsletter manager and a range of keyword and other internet data tools that are all designed to lead you to discover profitable programs you can tap into.
I looked at Site Build It a couple of years back and could see some value in it but it required a lot of hard work using a rather stilted page building tool. It was designed for those who did not want to get their hands dirty under the bonnet of their website but offered little flexibility in page layout and design. It has improved since then.
I did start an SBI site and it is still going well with an Alexa rank around the 600k mark – and I have done nothing to it for almost a year now. It makes enough money from ad revenue alone to cover the cost of the subscription. I have been using it mainly for experimenting with a range of web publishing and advertising models. I really should work on it a bit more as it has the potential to make a whole lot more money 
An SBI subscription also includes access to the private forums where I have gained many useful tips on website building, traffic generation and relationship building – with like-minded website owners.
If you pick a really hot topic for an SBI site and put lots of effort into it you could make a whole lot of money – and many people have. Here are some samples of sites all below 100k Alexa rank and all of them have revenue systems built into their sites.
I recently found a second niche that I am really passionate about (writing software) and that is where I am currently concentrating most of my efforts. I still put time and effort into the SBI site as traffic continues to grow. With just 40 pages I am getting 15,000+ page views a month. One thing that really rocks is that other people write content for your SBI site – a bit like guest posting on a blog.
They submit their stories, quotes, tips, etc. and each new one becomes another page on the site. It is called Content 2.0 and is fully integrated into SBI. You can even automatically place relevant ads on their pages!
Early on the page building tool and templates meant that most SBI sites looked very much alike. Since then they added an option to write your own HTML , create your own templates, and build 2 or 3 column layouts, fully customised.
But then if you have the talent to do just that, a cheaper solution might be to host your own website for a whole lot less than SBI charges. Be aware that you will have to go it alone without all the tools, tutorials and support from the forums. The decision is of course yours, but I have not abandoned the SBI site even though I have built a dozen other sites outside of SBI. The model does seem to work – look at the hundreds of high traffic SBI sites to see what is possible.
Many people will rave about many things and even more so if there is a chance to make a dollar or two if you can get others to believe what you say. I don’t expect you to believe me based solely on what I say here. But do check out the hundreds of other testimonies and rock-solid evidence.
There is a significant push from within the company to sell more subscriptions to SBI via affiliate efforts. I believe that SBI is the type of product that sells better if people see something they like about it rather than being told that it is the solution to their future income concerns, like I have seen on quite a few affiliate promotion pages.
SBI provides a lot of tools with the subscription and you could pay significantly more elsewhere for the access to the same data. I used to wonder about whether or not the average person needs so many of the tools on offer. I have since started using many of the tools and found how useful they are and how expense they would be to buy/subscribe elsewhere. I rest at night knowing that my ad revenue is covering the cost of the SBI subs and I get to use the vast range of tools “for free”.
I am neither for or against the SBI product. It comes down to the fact that it is just that – a product. I am offended though by the sales techniques used by some SBI affiliates as they leave out a lot of the detail about how much effort is required and how much time is needed to make a dollar or two. In fact, some of the affiliate sales push lately from within SBI is bordering on desperation. I can quite honestly tell you that it will take time and effort to make money whether you use SBI or not, and there’s nothing new in me saying that
Many of the loudest proponents of SBI got in early and made a killing with adsense before the big correction took place. Many ad clicks were paying multiple dollars – just for a single click – but most have now settled back down to a more realistic payout. There are some high value clicks still out there but the competition to get that traffic is only for really serious players. I make a reasonable adsense income based on only a handful of pages displaying ads.
Just like any new idea or business concept, the early adopters often get the cream off the top. They then go on to promote the success of this “new” product to naive newcomers who are attracted to the $$$ like moths to a flame. My philosophy is to discard the claims of the top 10% and forget the complaints of the bottom 10%. What is left in the middle are the genuine website owners who are making a reasonable income and not making a whole lot of noise about it. Listen to them – I am one of them.
Inside the forums I’ve read about some who are struggling to get their first dollar or to make any sort of regular income from their sites or to understand how it all comes together. To be fair, several of them have probably not bothered to read the extensive help docs or watch the videos that reveal pretty much everything you need to know. Many first-time forum visitors do tend to ask questions first and read the manual second. I suggest that if you’re serious about making money online and SBI sounds like it might be for you, read the SBI manual first. This was the first SBI information I read and it convinced me there was substance to the product.
I guess a lot of people got on board thinking that the money would start flowing a month or so after they put their first page online, only to discover that the internet advertising frenzy that fueled the success of the early SBI builders (and many other online businesses) was no longer happening. If you get it up and running very quickly you could make some money within a few months but it wont be $1000 a month. If anyone promises you anything like that, quickly move on to the next site.
What do I recommend?
1. SBI is great for those who, like I said, don’t want to get their hands dirty taking care of a whole host of SEO (search engine optimisation) details, page building technicalities, traffic building and marketing techniques, auto-responders, and other matters associated with running your own site. All you need to start is to be passionate about a hobby or interest and have basic literacy skills with a willingness to do a bit of reading and learning.
2. Other SBI users are mostly genuine. I have seen nothing illegal or dishonest about SBI. Quite the opposite in fact. There seems to be a familiar tone that permeates most forum discussions like that of a family chatting about which crop they’re going to plant on the back 40 acres.
3. For the website experts, the SEO gurus and bloggers, I recommend that you consider SBI carefully before deciding which way you’ll go. If you go it alone be sure to assemble a small group of online friends as it is difficult to be successful as a lone wolf. If you do join SBI you might pick up a thing or two in the forums or the how-to documentation but my guess is that you would soon get tired of the gushing that sometimes flows in forum posts and just want to do your own thing. It’s up to you but at least check out this excellent article on Blog or Build – a direct comparison between blogging and building an SBI site.
4. It is refreshing. Don’t get me wrong on point 3. There is nothing wrong with the gushing. I find it quite refreshing in what is a rather cut-throat business environment to both contribute and receive very helpful tips and tricks for use online, and often without any thought to how valuable those tips are. In a competitive environment many people keep such tips to themselves. In the SBI forums, most people happily share their experience and success. If you like a lot of support from like-minded website owners then SBI might just suit you.
5. SBI is not an MLM organisation. There is an SBI affiliate program but then I run one on this blog and offer one with the software products I sell elsewhere. Some people will join SBI only as an affiliate and promote the product without really trying it. Is that any different from the thousands of affiliates who do the same with the “How to reduce your golf handicap by 3 in 3 weeks” ebook? If you’re serious about promoting SBI, join up and try it out first. It is a vastly different thing promoting SBI compared with selling a few ebooks on fishing or golf.
Final disclaimer (based on what I have read about this topic on some other blogs). I am an SBI site owner and an affiliate. I offer the information in this post to help balance the debate that often flares up around the net about what SBI is and isn’t. If in your experience you have found or experienced something I haven’t please feel free to leave your comment below.
Comments about both positive and negative experiences are welcome.
I offer you the “Approve your own comment” feature so that you can be sure to get your comment published. Be warned though. If you include an affiliate link in your comment I am likely to delete your link or comment or hijack your link so play fair and include a only link to the home page or About Me page of your SBI site (if you have one) so that readers can visit your site and make up their own mind about SBI.
Comments containing offensive language or baseless accusations will probably be removed without any warning.
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I like to read this article. Very helpful for me. SBI is great idea. I wanna try SBI that might just suit for me..:)
Golf Swing Mechanics´s last post..Balance- Important Factors Great Golf Swing
Try SBI for a month for $30. This is an affiliate link. Give it a go and if after 30 days you cannot see the value it is easy to discontinue.
Twitter: blogsterblogsire.com
says:
In your opinion, would it be better to go the SBI route or to go the blogging route? It seems to me that blogging would be cheaper and as long as you regularly updated your blog, more search engine friendly.
Sire@Rocks The Blogging World´s last post..Saving Money So You Can Host Your Own Blog
It depends on a number of things. If you are comfortable tweaking the on and off-page elements that contribute towards SEO and have the resources to build a growing volume of organic search traffic then you’ll be able to do a good job without subscribing to SBI. SBI is a whole lot more than just SEO.
Blogs are fundamentally flawed as far as the default navigation is concerned. The best website (remember, this is just my opinion) is one with a tiered navigation structure with related pages nested within levels of that navigation structure.
Sure, there are categories and tags, but unless you are actively linking keywords in each of your posts to the URL of related posts, then search engines see blogs more as a collection of articles than a purpose-built niche site. I am trialling a plugin that creates dynamic links between posts to simulate natural keyword linking. Early indications from others who have used it show an increase in two key stats “time on site” and “average number of page views”.
However, you could do worse than trialling SBI. I think you can still get it for $30 a month up front. A month would be enough time to explore the available tools, the forums and the collection of tutorials. If after the first month it is not what you’re looking for then it is a small price to pay compared with some other systems and tools for sale.
Twitter: blogsterblogsire.com
says:
Nah, I think I’m having too much fun blogging to give them a try, at least for now anyway. Thanks for replying to my comment.
Sire@Rocks The Blogging World´s last post..Saving Money So You Can Host Your Own Blog
It is a whole lot simpler to go it alone with blogging. There is a whole lot of learning with SBI. It is really good for people just starting out but you must commit quite a few hours a week to learning a lot of new stuff. I agree – blogging is a lot of fun and the mechanics of a WP blog are far superior to the pseudo-blog offered at SBI.
SBI sounds good. Actually I like how you explained it all. You don’t sound like you’re selling it. I personally hate those articles about affiliate products which are only full of links and praises about them. Anyway, I don’t handle the technical sides of my blogs but I’ll refer your post to my friend and see if he’d like to try it.
Yeah, me too. Whenever I get the hard-sell in an email or read it online I quickly unsubscribe or leave the site. There are plenty of sources of low-impact, quality information without the need to subject yourself to head-smacking sales pitches. Glad you liked the story.
I’ve been using SBi for 3 months and I absolutely love it.
Alan´s last post..Fast Weight Loss Diets Confusion
In a quirky way I still like the whole package. I have taken a 3 month break from my SBI site to work on some other projects. What I have learned from the tutorials has helped me to get a few other sites up and running without having to pay the $30 a month. Post your site URL here if you have your domain already for a free one-way link. Feel free to stick in a few choice keywords. If your site has a few good content pages I might even write a short blog post about it.
After reading this article about SBI, I got quite curious, but with $30 a month, I will try when I’m financially ready. Meanwhile, I’ll ask others I know who might be interested. Thank you for the comprehensive explanation about SBI, now I don’t have to explain everything about it to them, I’ll just e-mail it.
Felicia @ No deposit poker´s last post..Phil Ivey hired a bodyguard at the 2010 WSOP
Felicia, when you are ready to give it a go, read the case studies first for a whole lot of inspiration.
Hi Micheal, First of all, thanks for the resources. Really took me time to read all the comments, but I really enjoyed the article. It proved to be Very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commenters here! It is always good when you can not only be informed, but also entertained! I hope quality discussions follow this post. Great job.
Augustus @ Solar Power House´s last post..Adults Mario Halloween Costumes
Twitter: Rick_LaPoint
says:
I ran across SBI a while back and looked into it, even reading the entire documentation. After all that I still didn’t really “get” their Content 2.0, which they make a big deal about. In at least one (affiliate) forum I couldn’t get any concrete info about it as far as how the process works. Unless it was right there in front of my and I didn’t see the forest
Glad to find you in Twitter, as this is the only serious review I have found for SBI. I think a made the right decision by not getting involved in it.
Rick
Rick LaPoint@Internet Marketing´s last post..Telemarketing- Outside Sales’ Right Hand
Hi Rick. Content 2.0 is like having an open invitation for people to write their own content page on your site. It is a “tell your story here” style invitation. Each submitted (and published) story can attract comments from anyone (via a moderation panel) and they all go towards creating more targeted content around the site’s central theme. The central idea is to get your visitors to write some content for you.
If you had a site on European holidays you could invite people to share their favorite holiday story or location. All the good ones gets published and, as your site targets this topic, the story adds more weight and keywords to the existing index in the search engines.
Twitter: MichelleRAdams
says:
Hey Michael, nice to meet another Aussie who is keen to help people ‘see’ clearly rather than push push push with affiliate links. I’ve seen many for and against posts about SBI and they’ve left me in a mood that says ‘don’t touch it’.
I don’t have a need for SBI not to mention I can see a lot of other ways to put $30 a month to good use online, but your balanced post has at least given me some clues as to what is good about it and who it might suit.
Great to meet you…thanks for following me on Twitter, that’s how I ended up here.
Michelle Adams´s last post..Unearthing You
I too am over looking at all the “buy this to improve …” sales pitches. I have made it my mission to find bloggers who, like you say, want to genuinely help others.
My mission is to develop software for bloggers to help them stand out. See this post http://nine95.com/how-many-rivets-in-a-boeing-747/. When a rivet start to shine or take on a different colour it will get noticed.
Twitter is an unusual tool and I have only just recently ramped up my efforts to use it more effectively.
Hmmm yes, SBI!? I am still undecided what to do with my SBI site but I have spent too much time on it to let it go. I keep it ticking along and it keeps its head above water.
Thanks for stopping by with your comment.
Wow Michael,
Thanks for sharing a lot of facts about SBI. I happened to stumble upon their site before but I never had the chance to study their services.
This post is certainly going to help a lot of internet marketers like me know the site better.
I am glad to be of service. That is a good blog you have started. Fathers certainly need all the help they can get to be the best they can be for their children.
http://fatherhoodcoach.com/
I share the opinion that SBI is the type of product that sells better if people see something they like about it.
Marnie,
SBI really sells well when promoted as part of a personal success story. I read about a lady who visited Australia for a holiday. She loved it so much she stayed and took photos and wrote travel stories. She wanted to share them with others as many of her friends had not heard of the places she was discovering. She found SBI and built a successful business based around sharing her passion for Australia through stories and photos.
SBI works “out of the box” but it works extremely well if you are truly passionate about what you do and it is suitable for publishing on a website. It could be a passion for helping people with their finances, photography techniques or a travel guide to an little-known paradise.
The lady’s name is “B”. It is more than that but she shortens it to “B”. Her story goes something like this…
“What can I say? Life has never been better. Freedom is something that can’t be paid for. It’s not that I work less, I probably work more than I ever did, but I do it on my own terms. It doesn’t feel like work at all.I am confident that I will never have to work for others again unless I want to!” Read more about her SBI success story here.
Cheers, Michael
Twitter: Alexwhalley23
says:
Michael,
Thanks for the detailed writeup and review man – honestly gave me a good idea of whether something like this is for me or not.
I am also uber impressed that you are getting 15k page views a month!
How long has that taken to reach that figure?
Respect.
Alex@amazon niche sites´s last post..The Keyword Blogger Found his Niche! Like it
In your case I think SBI would not provide any advantage to your operations. I got into it early in my online activities and it served as a great launching pad and training platform, and has continued to make some small change for me each month
It’s grown to 22k page views since I wrote that post. I started with SBI early in 2009 but didn’t really do a lot with it until 2010. You know the story – buy an info product or service and then stick it on the shelf while you buy a couple more
In any case, that represents a few months solid work early in 2010 and I have seen steady growth in traffic since then.
SBI has a pseudo blog package that allows every new page – and update to each page – to be pinged via an RSS feed. Site visitors can submit their own pages and I have 29 pages of content that have been submitted by visitors with 24 comments so far. It helps bring more traffic as visitors who have submitted their own stories – it is a site on personal growth – invited others to “see” their published story.
I appreciate you taking the time to comment. Michael
I too, have been very happy with my SBI experience.
All advice is aimed at being real and not trying to trick the system. Content, content, content with a “real voice” is the constant game plan.
The amount of information and instruction is incredible and the log term wisdom is readily available.
Good article Michael, you painted an accurate picture.
Mike
Mike´s last post..Rapid Profit Formula l Online Affiliate Marketing l Marketing Resources
Hello Mike and welcome to a fellow SBI owner. I took a look around your site and you have a fair bit of content set up there. The last post you’ve linked to in Comment Luv is an interesting product. I just did a 10 part series on something really similar to the steps you’ve listed in that post. It’s coming out in an ebook soon and I’d be happy to have you as an affiliate for the premium version of the book
Keep up with posting comments on related blogs that offer CommentLuv as you’ll get some really good backlinks and traffic that way, especially if you pick really good titles for your articles. Michael
Thanks for the tutorial, very interesting.
You’re welcome.
I think that SBI is very useful indeed specially for me, I am searching different site for me to learn more about internet marketing, I would like to give it a try.I hope that this will work well for me like the others who tried this.
Kate Brown Wilson´s last post..שליחת SMS
Why don’t you give it a go? You can buy an SBI monthly subscription for around US$30.
WOW! I LOVE your blog! What an inspiration ~ Thanks!
No worries. Love your comments!